Anaya Nolan
Aristotle and Aquinas are two of the most influential proponents of natural law theory. Aristotle, an Athenian philosopher who died in 322 B.C., wrote about science, ethics, and politics, and is known for his belief that nature is purposeful and governed by natural laws that human reason can discover. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Roman Catholic scholar, reconciled Aristotle's political philosophy with Christian faith, arguing that human reason is a spark of the divine, and thus, all human lives are sacred. While both Aristotle and Aquinas agree that it is possible to examine human powers and inclinations to determine achievable goods, they differ in their understanding of the role of human nature in defining the good. Aquinas, unlike Aristotle, asserts that God created nature and rules the world through divine reason, and distinguishes four types of law: eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine law.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Aristotle's view of the world | Nature is purposeful and driven by natural laws that human reason can discover |
| Aquinas' view of the world | God created nature and rules the world by "divine reason" |
| Aristotle's view of religion | Nature is not controlled by the Greek gods or religion |
| Aquinas' view of religion | Natural law is supplemented by revealed divine law |
| Aristotle's view of natural justice | Natural justice is a form of political justice |
| Aquinas' view of natural justice | N/A |
| Aristotle's view of reason | N/A |
| Aquinas' view of reason | Human beings use reason to lead their lives |
| Aristotle's view of the good | The good is to be understood in terms of human nature |
| Aquinas' view of the good | The good is to be done and pursued, and evil avoided |
| Aristotle's view of law | The best regime may not rule by law at all |
| Aquinas' view of law | Laws should change to reflect customs |
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What You'll Learn
Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle's work
Thomas Aquinas was a medieval Roman Catholic scholar and theologian who reconciled Aristotle's political philosophy with Christian faith. Aquinas studied Aristotle's works at the University of Naples and later wrote commentaries on them, including reasoned propositions based on certainties revealed by God. He also wrote summaries of Catholic doctrine that attempted to combine reason and faith.
Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle's work is that nature is organised for good purposes and driven by natural laws that human reason can discover. Aquinas's natural law view understands principles of right to be grounded in principles of good. He states that reason reveals particular natural laws that are good for humans, such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God.
Aquinas's interpretation of Aristotle's work is also evident in his belief that human beings have the natural capacity to know many things without special divine revelation. He wrote that "the light of reason is placed by nature [and thus by God] in every man to guide him in his acts". This is in contrast to Aristotle, who did not believe that the Greek gods or religion controlled the world and its people.
Aquinas's work can be divided into theological and philosophical categories, although the lines between the two are blurry. He wrote commentaries on many of Aristotle's key works, including On the Soul, On Interpretation, Posterior Analytics, Nicomachean Ethics, Physics, and Metaphysics. These commentaries are often useful for understanding Aquinas's philosophical thought, although they should be approached with caution, as Aquinas's principal method of commentary is to produce a word-by-word paraphrase.
Aquinas's interpretation and combination of Aristotle's work with Christian faith had a significant and lasting influence, with essentially everything he wrote having survived and been translated into many modern languages.
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Aquinas' view of God and religion
Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican theologian and one of the most influential medieval thinkers of Scholasticism. He is regarded as the father of the Thomistic school of theology. Aquinas's views on God and religion were heavily influenced by Aristotle, as well as by Augustine and the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations.
Aquinas defined religion as the act of expressing worship and showing reverence to the divine. He believed that religion fundamentally consists of divine worship and that it is a human act that involves the rational faculties of intellect and will. He emphasised the worship of the authentic God and the virtue of reverence, adopting Augustine's view on the essential connection between faith and religion. According to Aquinas, faith forms the foundation for genuine religious devotion and the proper honour of God. He considered faith to be an intellectual virtue or habit, with God as its object. While he acknowledged that there are other things that fall under the purview of faith, such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation, he asserted that we only affirm these specific doctrines if they have some relation to God.
Aquinas also provided a philosophical and theological basis for the existence of God, developing five arguments known as the Five Ways. These arguments, rooted in natural theology, begin with general truths about natural phenomena and lead to the existence of an ultimate creative source of the universe, which Aquinas identifies as God. The first argument, from motion, is derived from Aristotle's concept of a prime mover. Aquinas's second argument, from causation, builds upon Aristotle's notion of an efficient cause. The third argument, from contingency, distinguishes between possible and necessary beings, concluding that there must be a necessary being, which is God. The fourth argument, from degrees of perfection, asserts that there must be a supreme perfection, which Aquinas identifies as God. The fifth argument, from the ontological argument, claims that God is the most perfect being, possessing all perfections.
While Aquinas believed that we can demonstrate God's existence, he recognised that our understanding of God's nature is limited. He approached the investigation of God's nature by determining what God is not, denying properties that are conceptually at odds with the conclusions of the Five Ways. Aquinas held that God has existed eternally and unchangingly and that God freely chose to create the changeable universe from nothing (ex nihilo). He emphasised that only God has the power to bring things into existence ex nihilo, which is the defining feature of creation in the strictest sense.
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Aristotle's view of nature and reason
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was a student of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great. He wrote on a wide range of topics, including logic, metaphysics, physics, epistemology, astronomy, meteorology, biology, psychology, ethics, politics, law, and poetics. Aristotle's works provided a sophisticated explanation of the world based on natural law and reason.
Aristotle was an empiricist, meaning he believed that truth is discovered primarily through the senses. He viewed nature as an inner principle of change and being at rest. In his treatise on the concept of nature, Aristotle states that nature is not in matter but in form—in the form of entities that have within themselves the source of change and are thus capable of generating themselves. He calls this form a "soul," intending it not in the Christian sense of a spiritual principle, but in the sense of a vital principle shared with plants and non-human animals.
Aristotle's view of nature is often characterized as "essentialism," which sees nature as being guided by universal and unchanging essences that direct natural events, particularly the reproduction processes of living beings, in a fixed and regular manner. This interpretation has been attributed to Aristotle's use of the term "eidos" (form), which was assumed to be similar to Plato's concept of the same term. However, Aristotle's eidos is distinct from Plato's, and his concept of nature has been subject to numerous misunderstandings.
Aristotle's metaphysics and physics use a common framework and often address similar issues. He proposed four questions that can be asked about a thing to understand it:
- Material cause—what something is made of
- Formal cause—what kind of thing is it
- Efficient cause—what caused it to exist
- Final cause—what is its purpose or function
These questions reflect Aristotle's teleological view of reality, the idea that nature is goal-oriented. According to Aristotle, humans are by nature "rational animals," and he reasoned that "man is by nature a political animal."
In summary, Aristotle's view of nature and reason emphasizes the role of sensory experience in understanding the world, sees nature as guided by intrinsic principles of change and stability, and recognizes the importance of final causes or purposes in understanding natural phenomena, including human nature.
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Aquinas' four kinds of law
St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Roman Catholic scholar, reconciled the political philosophy of Aristotle with Christian faith. In doing so, he contended that a just ruler or government must work for the "common good" of all. Aquinas described four kinds of law: eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine law.
Eternal law, or God's providence, "rules the world... his reason evidently governs the entire community in the universe". Aquinas believes that eternal law is all God’s doing. It is God's perfect plan, not fully knowable to humans. It determined the way things such as animals and planets behaved and how people should behave.
Natural law is the participation in the eternal law by rational creatures. Aquinas wrote most extensively about natural law. He stated, "the light of reason is placed by nature [and thus by God] in every man to guide him in his acts." Natural law allows us to decide between good and evil. According to Aquinas, the master principle of natural law is that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided."
Human law is particular applications of law resulting by reason. Aquinas defines law as "an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated." Human laws are subject to change, according to Aquinas, because experience in practical matters may allow us to improve them. Human law is only valid if it conforms to natural law. If a law is unjust, then it is not actually a law, but a "perversion of law".
Divine law, primarily from the Bible, guides individuals beyond the world to "eternal happiness" in what St. Augustine called the "City of God." Divine law is not in conflict with natural law, but it reaches human beings by a different route, revelation.
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Aquinas' influence on natural law
St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Roman Catholic scholar, is known for his efforts to reconcile Aristotle's political philosophy with Christian faith. Aquinas travelled to the University of Paris in 1245, where he studied under Albert the Great, who believed that Aristotle's worldview was compatible with Christianity. Aquinas' work focused on combining human reason with Christian faith, and he wrote commentaries on Aristotle that included reasoned propositions based on certainties revealed by God.
Aquinas identified four types of law: eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine law. Eternal law refers to the laws that govern the nature of an eternal universe, while divine law is concerned with the standards that humans must meet to achieve eternal salvation. Natural law, according to Aquinas, is the way that humans "participate" in the eternal law. He stated that human beings are unique among God's creatures in their ability to use reason to guide their actions, and this is what constitutes natural law. The master principle of natural law, as Aquinas wrote, is that "good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided." He identified certain natural laws that are good for humans, such as self-preservation, marriage and family, and the desire to know God.
Aquinas' natural law theory holds that the standards of morality are derived from the nature of the world and the nature of human beings. He identifies the rational nature of humans as that which defines moral law, stating that "the rule and measure of human acts is reason." This idea is reflected in his understanding of the role of human nature, which is to define the possibilities of human achievement rather than to set or define the good itself.
Aquinas' work on natural law has had a significant influence on the development of natural law theory and ethics. His ideas have been central to the natural law tradition in philosophy, with many subsequent theories subscribing to or building upon his key tenets. Aquinas' natural law theory continues to be a focus of study and discussion in the field of ethics and has left a lasting impact on our understanding of the relationship between law, morality, and human nature.
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Frequently asked questions
Aristotle's natural law is driven by the belief that nature is purposeful and governed by laws that human reason can discover. Aquinas, on the other hand, states that God created nature and rules the world through "divine reason".
Aristotle's view of natural law is based on his observation that nature is purposeful and driven by natural laws. He believed that human reason could discover these laws, which were not controlled by Greek gods or religion.
Aquinas's view of natural law is that it is derived from the rational nature of human beings. He identifies four kinds of law: eternal law, natural law, human law, and divine law. He argues that human lives are sacred and of infinite value because humans have reason, and reason is a spark of the divine.
Aristotle does not discuss natural law in the context of morality. Aquinas, however, holds a natural law theory of morality, stating that what is good and evil is derived from the rational nature of human beings.
